#1: Eggsperiments

This is the least time-consuming of the three activities, as it can be done in about 10-15 minutes. It’s educational (eggs-ucational?), but also fun.

Will it sink or will it float?

The project will demonstrate the concept of density. If the egg is denser than the liquid it is placed into, it will sink. If it’s not, it will float.

You will need:

Hardboiled eggs: you’ll need either three total or three for each child. It’s a three-part experiment, so we gave each of our three kids one egg and let them do one part. You could also give each child three eggs so that they can perform all three eggsperiments themselves.

Water: lukewarm water works best to dissolve the salt.

Vegetable oil: enough to fill a glass one-third to halfway with the oil.

Kosher salt: about half a cup of salt per glass. I recommend Kosher salt because you can also use it for the next project. If you don’t have kosher salt, you can use table salt or even sugar.

Glasses: one glass per egg (so at least three glasses). Wide-bottomed glasses are less likely to get knocked over when children are using them.

Spoons: to mix the salt into each glass of salt water.

I used plastic cups so I didn’t worry about the kids breaking them as they played.

Let’s Get Started

Glass #1: Water. Fill the first glass with plain water.

It’s a good idea to have the adult pour the water.

Glass #2: Oil. Fill the second glass a quarter of the way with oil and the remainder with water.

You can use any kind of cooking oil.

Glass #3: Salt. First add around half a cup of salt. This doesn’t have to be measured out exactly – just remember that you have to add a decent amount of salt to make the eggsperiment effective.

Pour lukewarm water over the salt. Mix with a spoon until the salt dissolves.

It can take awhile before the salt fully dissolves. I let each child have a turn mixing.

Take a Guess

Ask your children to predict which liquid will make the eggs float and which will let the eggs sink.

Here’s how our guesses went:

Water – 2 votes for sink, 1 for float

Oil – 2 votes for float, 1 for sink

Salt – 2 votes for sink, 1 for float

What did your family guess?

Add the Eggs

You can eat the eggs when the eggsperiment is done, but you may want to wash the shell of the oily one before you peel it so you don’t end up with a slimy egg.

Drop one hardboiled egg into each glass and check out the results. Did your children guess correctly? Do they think it’s science – or magic?

Post Eggsperiment Discussion

After you finish this project, talk about what you learned. Why can a person float more easily in the ocean than in a swimming pool? Look at pictures of the ocean, the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake online.

The kids thought it was funny to see people sitting on top of the water in the Dead Sea!

#2: Artful Food

Food comes in all kinds of neat shapes, sizes and colors. That makes it perfect to create art projects! One of the easiest and most fun art projects you can do is to make a collage with food.

Make a collage with food as your medium.

I’ve listed some foods below, but feel free to use your imagination as to what foods could work for your collage. Just make sure they’re dry foods. Foods with a lot of moisture can cause the paper to rip. They may also make your artwork smell funny and eventually rot.

Note: warn younger kids to not eat the food used in this project. It will get dirty and covered with glue and some of it is a choking hazard when it’s not cooked.

You will need:

Kosher salt: a great substitute for glitter. Coarse sugar or other coarsely ground salts work equally well. Fancier salts come in a variety of colors like pink, red, black, brown, and gray, which make them nice for art projects. You can also dye your “glitter” with a few drops of food coloring.

Pasta in different shapes: noodles with flatter sides are easier to glue onto the paper.

Bowls: You can use a separate bowl for each food item (like lasagna noodles in one and macaroni in another) or mix several types of the same food together (like all the pastas in one large bowl) – whatever makes you happiest.

Construction paper: heavy paper will hold the weight of the pasta best. You can also use card stock or poster board. Keep in mind that if you use a large canvas, you’ll need a bigger space to display it. (You know your kids will want to hang their artwork for everyone to see!)

Markers: crayons or colored pencils work just fine, but I prefer markers because of the vibrant colors.

Glue: glue sticks are convenient, but liquid glue is stronger. If your kids have the patience to wait for liquid glue to dry (my younger ones usually don’t), I recommend using that.

Let’s Get Started

Gather your materials. Clear off a counter or a flat space that’s easy to wipe clean once the project is done.

You might have to leave the artwork to dry for a bit once it’s done, so don’t, for example, create your artwork on the dining room table right before you’re going to eat a meal (I speak from experience – doh!).

You can use tri-colored or whole-wheat pasta to add more color and texture.

Explain the Activity

You can give your kids a theme (like “make a picture of our family” or “create your ideal vacation land”) or you can just let their imaginations run wild. I love to see the ideas my kids come up with and the range of styles they have.

Make the Collages

Draw a picture on the paper and give it color, texture and shape by gluing on food.

Help your children if they need it and be sure to make a collage yourself. It’s fun to do and it will show your kids that you’re never too old to enjoy the creative process.

Be sure to use plenty of glue when you add the pasta or it will fall off after drying.

Let the Glue Dry

If you forget this step, the food will slip off of the paper. Make the pictures in the evening and let them dry while you sleep.

Can you guess which one I made? I’ll give you a hint – red is my favorite color.

Have an Art Show

Hang your artwork. Admire your wonderful creations. You can even invite friends or family members to come view your masterpieces – and maybe make some food art of their own!

Letting them show their artwork to others builds your children’s pride in their ability to create.

#3: Build Your Own Food Pyramid

I love gingerbread houses and other gingerbread creations. I’ve seen some amazing ones and even tried making a few. They came out pretty spectacular (if I do say so myself) but they were time-consuming to make and would not be a great project for children who don’t have a lot of patience.

Graham cracker creations simplify the gingerbread house concept. Graham crackers are very consistent in shape and they’re light so it’s easy to “glue” them together with frosting.

It’s a marvel of engineering. And you can eat it for dessert!

Although I like to make pyramids, you could also try rectangular houses or other shapes – use your imagination!

You will need:

Graham crackers: seven crackers (more if you want to make a larger pyramid).

Frosting: make your own frosting or buy it premade. Frosting that’s in a tube is easier to guide. Use colored frosting to give your pyramid a little extra pizzazz.

Cutting board: you could make your pyramid on any flat surface, but a cutting board base makes it easy to transport the pyramids to other locations.

Aluminum foil: cover the cutting board (or flat surface) with aluminum foil to make the building surface smoother and easier to “glue” things onto. It also makes cleanup a lot easier.

Candy and cookies: use these to decorate your pyramid and the area around it. Colored hard candies, neat-shaped gummy snacks, licorice whips, lollipops and marshmallows work well and look great. Stay away from chocolate candies, which will melt in your hands while you’re decorating.

We often have candy around the house leftover from Halloween, Valentine’s Day or other holidays. These make perfect decorations!

Construct Your Food Pyramid

Everyone should wash his/her hands first.

Prepare a building surface. Cut a piece of foil that is larger than the cutting board. Be careful of the sharp cutting edge of the foil container. Making sure the foil stays as flat as possible, wrap it around the cutting board.

The foil doesn’t have to completely cover the bottom of the board, but it should go firmly around the sides of the board so it doesn’t wiggle when you make your pyramid.

Build and Decorate Your Pyramid

Put a line of frosting on the foil. It should be the length of the small end of a graham cracker. Draw a second parallel line about two inches away.

The process can go faster if the adult spreads the frosting and the children place the graham crackers.

Place one graham cracker in each line, narrow side down. Lean them toward one another at the top until they resemble an upside down V.

“Glue” the tops together with some frosting.

Using that same technique, make a second upside down V next to the first.

The right-hand bottom of one upside-down V should be touching the left-hand bottom of the other upside-down V.

Put a little extra frosting on top of each upside-down V.

You may want to gently pat the frosting on the top of the Vs so it fills in any gaps between the graham crackers and helps them stick together better.

Lay a graham cracker flat across the top of the two upside down Vs.

Squeeze two more lines of frosting—one across either end of the horizontal graham cracker. Be gentle or the whole thing may come tumbling down like a house of cards.

Be gentle when you apply frosting to the graham crackers.

Using the same method, form another upside-down V out of two more graham crackers.

Place the second tier carefully.

“Glue” the tops together with frosting to complete your two-story pyramid.

The instructions here are for a smallish pyramid, but if you make the base wider by adding more upside-down Vs, you will be able to build a taller structure.

Let the pyramid dry for at least 15 minutes. If you skip this step and go straight to the decorating step, your pyramid may fall apart.

If you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time while you wait, try the eggsperiment I wrote about in project one above.

Decorate Your Pyramid

Spread frosting wherever you want to add candies or cookies. You can decorate the surrounding area (the cutting board), too.

You can work together as a group to follow a certain theme or have each child be in charge of decorating a particular area of the pyramid.

Press the decorations into the frosting to make them stick. Be gentle! If you use too much pressure, the crackers will break.

Eat Your Creation

A nice thing about this activity is that you can eat your masterpiece when you’re done.

I hope you and your children enjoy these three fun food projects. Can you think of any other new ways to use things that we usually eat?

What do you think? Tell me ways that you and your kids play with your food! I can’t wait to see pictures of your fun food activities. Share your thoughts and photos in the comments below or continue the conversation with me on Twitter: @HollyChessman.

Holly (@HollyChessman) is the co-founder of bozmyn, the secure, private, family-friendly social sharing site that lets you share what you want with who you want – and only who you want. Other posts byHolly Chessman »

Gretchen

My babysitter did the egg experiment with my kids last summer – they loved it!

Holly Chessman

Awesome! Hope you get to try out some of the other activities too. Playing with food is fun!

Graham

Some cool ideas…i showed my eldest son and he likes the idea of the food pyramid the best…but wants to use donuts..???

http://www.mykidsadventures.com/ Jennifer Ballard

Thanks for the fun ideas, Holly. Great ways to play with your food! We’ve made graham cracker gingerbread houses before, but never 2 stories high. As we say in Cub Scouts, “oooh, aaaah, im-PRESS-ive!”

Kelly T.

I’m boiling 3 eggs right now!!!

Holly Chessman

Cool! I’d love to see how that comes out!!! I’m not sure you could make it like a card tower but you could certainly use them like building blocks.

Holly Chessman

You’re welcome – glad you liked the article! I think I had as much fun as my kids with all this playtime. I especially enjoyed making pictures with the food. It’s not every day I get to make art with my kids.

Holly Chessman

Awesome! The kids all loved that one. It was so fun to see their faces as they dropped the eggs into the various liquids!

EmilyQuestions

Food pyramid sounds like a great way to use up those extra graham crackers from summer s’mores! Thanks for sharing, Holly. We are gonna try the eggs-periment, too!

Holly Chessman

Glad to see you’re excited about the ideas! We recently tried marshmallow Fluff as the “glue” for the graham cracker structure, so that’s kind of along the lines of the s’mores concept.
The Fluff was harder to spread evenly, but it tasted good!

Beth K

Great ideas Holly! I’ll definitely use this in the future, especially when the weather turns colder!

PamelaS

Great stuff! And I like the idea of using an aluminum foil covered cutting board for kitchen activities/projects. Gives you a good surface without making a mess on the table/counter! Also – are those spices in the test tubes? How neat! Great activities to keep on tap for a “rainy day”, keep ’em coming!

Holly Chessman

Glad to hear it! Playing with food is FUN!

Holly Chessman

They are actually different colored salts, although you could definitely use spices as well (plus, spices will make it smell good!). Glad you enjoyed the article!